


Hand-Me-Downs

by Ononymous



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 18:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14754173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ononymous/pseuds/Ononymous
Summary: Everybody noticed it. Mettaton was really out of sorts today. Even though in every physical respect it's the same Mettaton. What was going on?





	Hand-Me-Downs

God, he really needed a smoke break right now.

The operation of the flagship surface-based MTT™ Burger restaurant was a job whose good points were all front loaded. Actual sunlight and actual fresh air he would soon leave not so fresh had made even his monotonous job seem novel and exciting. But monsters can acclimatise to their surroundings just as well as humans can, and the dreariness soon crept back in to define the average work day. While he'd admit to anyone that rainbows were still miracles that constantly threatened to stir something in the decayed embers of his soul, his available time to observe the weather had dwindled. As their initial outreaches to humanity began to take root, the few diehard monsters who did not rush off to try human food – and suffer the alimentary consequences – were joined by more and more humans coming from the opposite direction. Locals at first, but when his boss' aggressive self-promotion began to pay off, the tenor of the customers shifted decisively to that of tourists. He hadn't cared about that part, just that there were so many of them from open 'til close. They were in the lunch rush now, and it was all claws on deck. His own claws were busy talking down an upset customer.

"Hey, I said no salt!"

His ears flattened against his head. "Sir, there is no salt on those fries."

"Then why do they taste so salty?"

"That'll probably be the glitter."

"Oh. Well I have high blood pressure, does glitter affect it?"

Taking a breath to steel himself for what he had to recite, he took out a small card from his shirt pocket, and read off a lawyer-approved disclaimer. "While further research is ongoing and MTT™ Burger makes no assertions of truth, preliminary joint studies between monsters and humans suggest the nutritional properties of monster-grown food differs significantly from equivalent human food. To wit, the studies imply the food's magical nature turns it directly into energy upon digestion, mostly bypassing the effects on humans the ingredients would have had. This is an interesting factoid and is not to be construed as medical advice, and MTT™ shall not be held liable for any side effects up to and including blood pressure fluctuations, palpitations, headaches, dizziness, nausea, voices, accidental thaumaturgical discharges, ennui, rashes, hair growth, tail growth or otherwise partial or complete metamorphosis of species. Please consult a licensed medical practitioner if you have concerns."

The customer wasn't upset anymore. But mainly because he was scratching his balding head in confusion.

"Any, uh... any of that ever happen?"

"Nah. But you know lawyers. Gotta cover all the bases, right?"

He shrugged. "I guess. So does that mean I'm okay to eat these?"

"If I were a lawyer I wouldn’t be working here, buddy. Enjoy your meal."

A less jaded cat might have made a mental note that the disclaimer tended to obfuscate more customers than it educated, and perhaps that was its intent. The cat who actually stood at the register watched the man shrug again and head back to his table and indeed enjoy his meal. He took no pleasure in resolving the man's complaint, he wasn't paid enough to. Besides, the line wasn't shrinking anytime soon. Hoping he wouldn't have to read all that off again, he settled back into the routine of getting orders cooked up, not even noticing his own habit of glancing at the beautiful day outside in the seconds between customers.

"Here you go ma'am, have a fabulous day. Welcome to MTT™ Burger, home of the Glamburger, can I-"

"Hello."

The voice was both familiar and strange, and it cut off his spiel immediately as he took in who he was talking to. The grey face complimented the black legs and black hair, yet contrasted wildly with the shocking pink torso, save for his equally pink eyes. Under the neon light above them he seemed to shimmer as his highly polished metallic chestplate reflected the light.

"Oh, b-boss!" No time to think, just act. "Okay, surprise drill number 3 lunch edition: Hey Newtella, One face steak, medium rare, no garnish so it ain't covered up and he can see-"

"Oh, that's very kind of you," said the figure, "But I don't want anything to eat right now."

"Well you normally don't, boss, it's just to check if we're cooking your face right-"

"You don't have to make it. I mean, unless you really want to."

That was an odd thing to say. In fact, other odd things were coming to his attention as he looked at the robot before him. The light above was doing its job and making him look shiny, but not as much as he normally did. His hair, normally designed to look windswept even in a vacuum, was sagging a little. His arms were locked to either side without moving like he'd forgotten about them. And his voice... he'd never heard that tone of voice coming from him before. It was... polite.

"I just wanted to ask you a question," Mettaton continued.

"Uh, sure thing, sir."

"Do you know where Doctor Alphys is?"

"The former Royal Scientist? Can't say I do."

"Oh. Thanks anyway."

The fact he hadn't been fired for not giving the right answer intrigued him, so he pressed his luck. "Aren't you friends with her? Don't you have her number?"

"I did. But my phone is broken."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

"Thank you. You're nice."

The manners were one thing, but a compliment? He was positively alarmed. Desperate to be clear of the blast radius when whatever this spell was ended, he cast around for a possible lead on Alphys' location. "Hey, maybe that Royal Guard she hangs out with might know."

"That's a good idea. Thank you again." Mettaton turned round, and took two uncharacteristically clunky steps away, before looking back. "You know, you look really tired. You should go home and get some rest. If you want, that is."

He walked out of the restaurant, heavy thuds with every step. The cat stared after him, the utter bizarreness of the interview dwelling on the weirdest thing of all: He'd just been given a free day off.

Oh well, no time like the present.

"Newt, cover the registers." He took out a half-empty carton of cigarettes. "I've got soaps to catch up on."

c

"So, punk, you think you're ready?"

"I don't know, it's a big step..."

"Not big enough! When you commit, you go all in! You can't half-ass it. Pour your determination into it, and no regrets! Your life's on the line if you screw this up! Now, give me everything you've got!"

"O-okay..."

Hephaestus trembled before his one-time commander. Not that she hadn't tried to browbeat him with orders back in the day, it was part of basic drilling. But without the formal structure of the royal guard to keep her in check, her standards had grown ever more stringent. He'd heard the King had tried to get her to lighten up, but unless he supervised the training personally it never lasted. Hephaestus allowed himself a glimpse of her intense yellow gaze, stretched his broad and chiseled shoulders and, with a brief twitch of his fingers, finally made his move.

He planted his left hand on the keys to produce a B-Minor Chord, and his right began to play the melody. His piano teacher looked at each movement like trying to find a needle in a needle factory.

"HOLD IT!" And just when he was reaching the chorus. "Look at the sheet! _Pianissimo_. Soft! You're putting too much oomph into the key change. Summon the willpower born from the fury of an erupting volcano to be as quiet as possible!"

"I know, but..." He looked away from her, not bothering to hide the smile that spread across his face. "Flopsy likes it when I play loud. You know his ears aren't as good as mine."

A post-modern Dadaist blare of deep discordant notes erupted from where Undyne's fist landed. "That's no excuse! You're not ready to deviate from the sheet music. Only when you know the song as it SHOULD be can you try tweaking it. You wanna play something loud, write your own damn song!"

"Well, I was thinking of writing a ballad about how his scales shine in the sun like-"

"Not on my time! That's not what you're paying me for!"

"I'm not paying you, you offered to help me when I said I was thinking of learning the piano."

Her Dada-laden expression gave way to a less controversial avant-garde style. "It's a figure of speech. Now, again, from the top. And no improvising!"

The song began once more. These lessons were always a little trickier than one might think when he could feel that gaze ready to pounce. The best coping mechanism he found was to retreat into focusing on the song itself, which would work before a harsh bellow of "Switch to _Allegro_ now!" or "You call THAT _Forte_?!" threatened to derail him. When he reached the pianissimo section again, no such shout happened, even though he personally thought he could have played it quieter. Maybe she was learning when to let it slide. Whatever the source of the mercy, his alignment with the song he was playing grew stronger, his excellent hearing giving him a treat. He had wondered why whenever he arrived at Undyne's house the furniture was always shoved to one side. Only now, as he concentrated on not putting too much force on the keys - harder than you might have thought, given his strength - could he understand the acoustic difference this made, and he was grateful for it. Flopsy would totally love-

 _Knock knock._ He fell out of the zone and stopped playing.

"Dammit, you let THAT throw you off? I oughta light some firecrackers and get you to play under fire! Otherwise you'll flinch when your audience starts clapping"

She left him at the piano before the proposal could be debated. Hephaestus struggled to recapture the feeling of being in the moment, but would be quickly stymied by another outburst.

"I _said_ come in!"

"Um, okay."

Hephaestus turned around to see Undyne re-enter the room, Mettaton close behind her.

"Take a seat, ya bucket of bolts."

"Um, i-is it alright if I just ask you-"

"I _said_ -"

He'd been looking over at the piano when Undyne spoke, and hurried over to it, sitting right next to Hephaestus with so much momentum it nearly knocked him off.

"There," said Undyne, "aren't you nice and comfy?"

"...no."

"Great!" She'd missed his response. "Nobody comes into my house without feeling welcome! I have all the politeness of a thousand fiery stars! Now, you want something to drink?"

"No- I mean, yes, if you want to." He was learning.

"Great! Lemme see, I got tea, soda, milk or hot chocolate. What tickles your fancy?"

"Um, I dunno. Water, I guess."

"Hold on," said Hephaestus, "don't you normally drink freshly squeezed satsuma juice with one and a half ice cubes?"

"Oh, do I?"

"Huh? How'd you know that, Hep?"

"...Flopsy gets his magazine."

"Huh. Welp, I don't have any satsumas, so water it is!"

She wasn't gone very long, and soon had the promised glass of water. Mettaton took it from her very carefully, like he was unsure about the protocol of the situation. He then placed the brim of the glass to his mouth and tipped it. The water rushed briefly against his closed mouth and dribbled down his chin and onto his lower body.

"That was nice. Thank you."

Three eyes looked at the display. Hephaestus' nose twitched before Undyne made a move to cover her confusion. "Uhhhhh, okay. Cool! Now that my houseguest is refreshed, we can talk about stuff!"

"Oh, good." Mettaton's relief was obvious. "Do you know-"

"Yup," Undyne continued, oblivious to the attempt at conversation, "I show good manners even to overhyped scrap heaps."

"I don't think that's fair," said Hephaestus, "I mean, did you see those ratings when he fought the human in the Underground?"

"Oh yes, that was very exciting-"

"Eh. Different strokes, Hep. Besides, my battle with them was way cooler!"

"Oh, was it? I didn't see that one..."

"No need to be sarcastic, rustbucket!"

"...sorry. I'll just go..."

Mettaton sat in silence for a couple of minutes while Undyne and Hephaestus waited for him to make a move. But he refused.

"Hey, did you change your mind?" asked Hephaestus.

Mettaton's hair looked rigid in surprise. "You can still see me?" He looked down at his body. "Oh right..."

Undyne's confusion outflanked her determination to always look like she knew what was going on. "Uh, you doing okay, Mettaton?"

"Well, I'm not feeling up to it right now if I'm honest, but it's nothing to worry about."

"When Alph gets back from calibrating her puny-wotsit-combobreaker in her lab, you want her to check you over?"

"That's okay. I should probably go anyway."

"Huh?" Hephaestus scratched his long ear. "But what did you want to talk about?"

"We talked about it already. I enjoyed this conversation. We should do it again."

Mettaton sprang to his feet and almost toppled over again from the momentum before stabilising, then walked clumsily out. Neither of the remaining occupants heard the door close, he must have forgotten.

"Celebrities," snarled Undyne, "all that attention goes to their head, I think. Right, big bunny boy, new song!"

"Okay." He took the sheet music from the arranged pile on top of the piano. "' _You Are Electric_ '? What's that?"

"Haven't a clue. Alph downloaded it from a website and translated the title from Japanese. It's meant to kick ass, though. Now, _Allegro_ and _Forte_ or god help me you'll be _Forte_ 'd through that window!"

****

"Croak."

"Arf!"

"Croak?"

"Bark bark."

"Ribbit!"

"Whine."

The argument was entering its second hour. Franklin thought he was holding his own and had made some good points, but Lesser Dog wasn't responding to them. He kept steering things back to his central point without any sound arguments to back it up. Franklin couldn't deny his frustration. If he didn't know any better, Lesser Dog was debating in bad faith, but Franklin knew it was just Catonian rhetoric, trying to persuade with brute force repetition. Braver toads than him had tried.

"Growl."

"Ribbit ribbit."

"Pant pant?"

"Croak."

"Howl!"

"... _peep_."

Lesser Dog stepped back in shock, and a burning sense of shame bubbled in Franklin's stomach. He wished he could take it back. A moment's anger had led to an unforgivable outburst and put their friendship in jeopardy. It would take a miracle to overcome this terrible mistake.

"Hello."

Both of them turned to look at the metallic figure who had approached him. Lesser Dog sniffed him a few times, evidently confused about something, before barking happily and wagging his tail, Franklin's dire insult forgotten in meeting somebody else.

"Woof?"

"Fine, I guess."

Franklin let his air sac deflate in relief at the distraction. "Ribbit?"

"Well, I'm looking for Doctor Alphys."

"Ribbit."

Mettaton looked at his lethally pointy feet to avoid their gaze. "Um, that's what Captain Undyne said. But I forgot to ask where her lab is."

"Arf!"

"Oh, it's alright. I can probably find it myself."

"Ribbit."

"You think they might know? Well, okay, I can ask them. Thank you."

Mettaton walked away, definitely lacking his usual grace. The two watched him go, then turned back to each other, the climax of their argument coming back into focus.

"...croak."

"Arf!"

Lesser Dog, moved by the eloquent apology, licked Franklin's face.

"Bark?"

"Ribbit!"

The two of them set off for the park, to find the biggest stick to play fetch with.

* * *

Many passers-by noticed him, no matter how much it looked like he was trying not to be noticed. They were used to a confident Mettaton who moved in a manner that could only be described - scientifically, legally and philosophically - as strutting, making sure you paid attention to him. The side effect of this strategy was that everyone was inured to it. So now when a decisively non-strutting Mettaton blundered down the road, the sheer difference caught their attention. And the more he tried to not engage with them, the more intrigued they were. Dub and Dave in particular admired the reverse psychology that was clearly going on. The wave of attention only died out when the streets were empty, which was a mercy as he walked past the theater.

"Ah, there you are!"

He stopped walking and looked over to the tall furry figure emerging from the entrance. The first small smile he'd worn all day appeared on his face. "Oh. Hello, Miss Toriel, how are you?"

"I am relieved you have arrived at last. What happened to your phone? You did not answer."

"Um, it's broken."

"Oh dear, that is unfortunate. No matter, come on in."

He never looked less sleek. "Um, right now? I was hoping to talk to Doctor Alphys..."

Toriel frowned. "But you agreed to be a judge for the Children's Talent Show, did you not?"

"Did I not? Oh, yeah, I guess did I. I mean I did."

"Then let us begin, we are already twenty minutes late."

"...Okay."

There was more unwanted attention as they entered the main hall, as a mixture of contestants and spectators tried to approach the celebrity judge, but Toriel quickly clamped down on this, clearly resolved to not keep anyone waiting any longer than necessary. She escorted Mettaton to a seat behind a table, then stepped onto the stage.

"Good afternoon, everyone! Welcome to the talent show. I believe many of you know our judge, Mettaton?"

Mettaton shrank in his eat as all eyeballs present steered to him. He meekly waved back at them.

"Now then, let us begin with our first act, a young man you do not need to keep at _arm_ ’s length." There was polite chuckling. "And he shall prove this to us all with his juggling act!"

A smattering of applause accompanied Monsterkid as he stepped onto the stage, holding a small bag with his tail which he then deposited in front of him. Then, rustling inside it with his foot, he took out three red balls which were suddenly tossed into the air one at a time. They were not destined for the floor however, because his tail successfully grabbed them and flung them back up, ready for his foot to catch them again. He kept this routine up for maybe twenty seconds before jumping onto his other foot without missing a beat. Then he switched feet again. Then he started bouncing one ball on his head while he continued to juggle the other two. Then he coiled his tail and "stood" on it while juggling with both his feet. For the finale, the balls were in the air, Monsterkid was back on both his feet, and he caught the balls with his teeth.

"Oh my goodness, well done, little one!" Toriel led the applause. "Now, let us see what our Judge thinks."

Mettaton took a moment to respond to this prompt. When he did, it was to hold up a sign with "10" written on it.

"Um, that was really good."

"Yo, that's awesome! Thanks, dude!"

"Indeed. Now, for our next act, they have been studying human stories in school, and shall now recite a famous scene from one of those plays. Please show your appreciation and try not to _Shake_ them up too much. You may begin, Fifthy!"

_Clunk._

A small rock was on the middle of the stage without of any sign of how it got there. Toriel continued to smile encouragingly, and they overcame their stage fright.

"To be, or not to be, that is the question." Their voice had had a bombast normally cultivated from classical actor training. "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune..."

They had a captivating air to their soliloquy, and had a wandering theater caster strolled past they might have been hired on the spot. The audience certainly admired the anguish of the struggle expressed in the speech, even if they didn't quite understand what "the Undiscovered Country" was supposed to be. Monsterkid thought it might have been Mount Ebott.

"Well spoken, Fifthy!" Toriel clearly planned to add this to the booklist in her class. "Now, what does our judge think?"

He didn't take as long this time. Once again the "10" appeared.

"Um, that was really good."

Those five words were his mantra throughout every subsequent act. Be it a Dummy using a Temmie as a ventriloquist doll - "Fight back against stereotypes you solids!" - a pun-laden comedian who looked rather old to be taking part - not that Toriel's hysterical laughter offered any objections - or a non-magic trick - the trick being building a house of cards without using magic to stabilize it - they all got a ten and they were all really good. Eventually Toriel approached him.

"Why are you giving them all the same score?" she whispered.

"Oh. I didn't want to upset anybody."

"Ah. I see." She returned to the stage. "We have one final act, everyone. And I am sure our Judge shall appreciate this performance in particular. It is a common expression that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I hope he feels flattered. Welcome Raffy and Ursk!"

A duck and a bear got onto the stage. The duck plopped down a keyboard, giving time for everyone to appreciate the bear's clothing, a mixture of black and shocking pink that looked familiar to anyone who'd been looking at the judge, though Ursk threatened to burst out of it. It was accompanied by a rather frazzled looking black wig and all sorts of metal fixtures were sewn into his jacket.

"Hello, darlings!" His voice was full of inexperienced bravado. "Hit it, Raffy!"

With an automated drum playing, Raffy started playing a fast paced song so full of splendour it threatened lethality. Ursk began to dance, his naturally bulky frame belying an agility one wouldn't expect, while his stubby legs kept striking through the air as though trying to slice a dust mote with them. Nobody could deny his passion. At the crescendo, Ursk ran across the stage, collapsed to his knees and skidded for a short distance, clawed finger pointed to the sky. The performance over, the audience gave them the wildest applause of all, before looking at who should have been utterly flattered.

"Um…"

He held up a "9". Muttering broke out like wildfire. The last act looked at each other not quite understanding what was going on, and Toriel was completely vexed by this break in the pattern. Before a riot could begin, Mettaton continued.

"That was really good. But the rhythm of your song was slightly inconsistent. You shifted from 3/4 to 7/8 during the chorus, and when you were doing that handstand you were actually on a 5/4 beat. Um, I guess changing the rhythm isn't automatically a bad thing, but it felt like it wasn't properly constructed to evoke a mood in the listener. If you want to be better at music, you need to pay more attention to the cadence, and practice when it's appropriate to change the rules, or break them entirely.

"Uh, sorry I guess…"

The comedian coughed, despite having no visible mechanism enabling him to do so. Nobody quite got where this attention to the technical construction of music came from. And now Mettaton was finding his pink boots mesmerising. Finally...

"...yeah. You're right." Raffy had stepped forward. "I put two cool sounding bits together without thinking about how they sounded combined. Sorry, Ursk, I let us down."

"Um, I can give you a ten if you want..."

"Nah," said Ursk, "that advice was really cool. We'll have a better act next time. Thanks, Mettaton!"

The graceful losers had diffused the situation, and more applause rang out. Toriel ushered all the acts onto the stage for a final bow, and Mettaton was swept up in by the flow of bodies. He bowed with the rest of them, then remained in that position for several seconds before a soft "Oh." could be heard and he righted himself.

"Thank you for your... interesting judicial style," said Toriel, exercising her diplomatic skills, "I feel like everyone had a wonderful time."

"Really? That's nice."

"Indeed. Now, to prepare for next week's field trip. Why Professor Madjick wants the children to walk over to Hotfall Street to visit the labs, I do not understand. They would be safer on a bus."

"Labs? Um, is that where Doctor Alphys works?"

"I believe so. My, she spends much time there of late. Frisk visits her frequently to ask about whatever her project is. I hope my rebuke did not encourage unhealthy work habits as a form of compensation. It was not meant to be a personal attack, I just felt she was not- Oh, you are leaving?"

"Yes," Mettaton didn't say. He just continued out the door.

* * *

*Four. Minutes left. Until the noodles. Are finished.

Alphys wiped the sweat off her brow. It had been a busy afternoon, but a highly productive one. The DT extractor had been reverse engineered, and her proof of concept for the pneumomatic recombinator was ready for testing. So now she was treating herself.

*Three. Minutes left. Until the noodles. Are finished.

Undyne would probably smell them after she finished. For having no nose her olfactory system could outsniff most dog monsters. Alphys felt ready for that disapproving look. She'd been very good following allowing Undyne to cook all the meals no matter how many noise complaints they got, every now and then you needed comfort food.

*Two. Minutes left. Until the noodles. Are finished.

And after this breakthrough, nobody could say she hadn't earned it. Free of the pressure of expectations, and receiving a little counsel from- she scratched her head as she tried to think of him. Her, maybe? - she could depart from her engineering background in relative comfort compared to the first time. Two people were counting on her, and two others would be delighted in the result, but Frisk was always ready to show her patience. She could truly atone for her actions.

*One. Minute left. Until the noodles. Are finished.

But that was still in the future. Focus on the problems at hand. Like whether she should use that customised flavour packet she bought online.

*The noodles. Are-

_Knock knock._

*Oh dangit.

"D-dangit!"

Leaving the sodium-drenched noodles flavourless, Alphys took them off the boil, and headed over to the door of her lab.

"Oh, M-Metttaton! Hi."

"Hello, Doctor..."

'Doctor'? Not 'Alphys, Darling'? That was odd. "Is everything alright?"

"I need to ask about this body. How do-"

Oh no, the NEO Protocol was probably interfering with the drivers for all those dance mechanisms he had her install again. "S-say no more, come on in and I'll r-run a diagnostic."

"But that's... Okay..."

He followed her into the main lab area and sat down where she indicated. Lifting up a flap on his neck she plugged in a cable connected to a computer, which started running.

"Hmm, I'm n-not seeing any exception reports... Debug mode? N-no, no errors... Records of power down and power up sh-show no defaulting to s-safe mode, so looks like that's fine... Active tracer is p-pinging, but that's entirely d-disconnected from the central OS... Mettaton, I c-can't see anything wrong, what's the m-matter?"

"Well…"

"There you are, darling!"

Alphys turned away from Mettaton to see Mettaton standing in the doorway, looking a lot more like Mettaton than the Mettaton she was diagnosing. Wait a minute-

"Oh, hello Mettaton..." said the first Mettaton.

"I've been looking all over for you!" Unctuous relief flooded his tone. "Well, when I realised you were in my spare body, I activated the anti-theft tracer to find you. Are you alright, Blooky?"

"B-Blooky?" The mysterious lack of glamour in her patient was suddenly explained. "Oh, of course."

"Um, I'm fine I guess," said Napstablook, "I was just curious about what it felt like, and... I'm not sure how to stop haunting it."

"Oh, th-that's probably the spectral phase containment g-grid. Mettaton had difficulties staying in the body at first, so I wh-whipped that up to keep him in."

"That sounds interesting," he said, "but I'd like to leave this body, please. I tried to call you directly to ask how, but my hands were stronger than I thought and I crushed my phone."

"Well I was pre-signing some photographs upstairs, Blooky!" Mettaton admonished. "Why didn't you just ask me for help?"

"Um, I didn't want to interrupt. Sorry."

"Oh, it would have been nothing, Darling! I'll help you immediately. On your feet." Napstablook obeyed. "Now, when you tried to leave the body, you got a tingly feeling, yes?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"That'll be the grid. Now, while you feel the tingle, there should be a pulling sensation accompanying it. It's a clever trick the good Doctor built in to disengage it. Focus on it, and use a little magic and you can switch it off!"

"Like th-"

There was a hum of discharged power as Napstablook's voice was cut off. His eyes closed, and his body toppled over backwards with a clatter. But he also remained where he was, Alphys now able to see the real Mettaton through his transparent form. There was a small breeze emanating from him, a manifestation of his relief, matched by an indentation beneath his eyes that looked like a smile.

"That's better..." he echoed, "Thanks, Happy..."

"Not at all! Now, how was that little adventure?"

"...heavy. Limbs are hard..."

"Yes," nodded Mettaton with understanding, "they take a good getting used to. Corporeality's not for every ghost. But you had a good trial run, Darling. I imagine you passed for me fabulously! Did you tell anyone who you really were?"

"I wanted to... But everyone seemed happy to think I was you..."

"N-Napstablook," said Alphys, "you can't please everyone all the time. I l-learned that the hard way. If you're having troubled, y-you have to ask for help."

"I guess... It feels rude..."

"Don't be silly, Blooky! Your friends are always there for you!"

"Okay... I'll try to remember in future... The Talent Show was kind of fun..."

Mettaton was pleasantly surprised. "Oh, you covered that for me? Wonderful, the MTT™ Brand is upheld! I had to attend to an emergency at my restaurant, one of the cashiers decided to take the day off with no warning, I wonder what sparked him to do that?"

"Oh..."

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think, and thanks for reading!


End file.
